Thanks for the reply. I agree with carefully examining the rate of unsubscribe and complaint metrics when implementing a remailing strategy in addition to measuring the extra conversions you’ll hopefully be generating.

Also including new fresh content in the remail should help as well. Another thought is to include a link such as “Send me fewer emails”, or “Click to receive only one email per week” next to your unsubscribe link. This gives your subscribers more control over the frequency without loosing them all together via unsubscribing.

You make an excellent point. There has been much debate about the value of open rates. See 4 blog posts below.

*Why The Open Rate Must Die: http://www.mediapost.com/blogs/email_insider/?p=627 (you may need to create a MediaPost account to read this one – well worth it) – make sure you follow comments as well.

*Email Open Rates: What’s the Alternative?: http://www.mediapost.com/blogs/email_insider/?p=635 (you may need to create a MediaPost account to read this one – well worth it) – make sure you follow comments as well.

*Opens rule! Opens rule! Long live King Open Rate!: http://blog.deliverability.com/2008/07/opens-rule-open.html – make sure you follow comments as well.

*Opens – The Term is the Problem: http://blog.deliverability.com/2008/07/opens—the-ter.html – make sure you follow comments as well.

Basically, an “open” is only recorded if the invisible image tag loads (images are turned on) OR if an action is taken within the email (i.e., a click-through). The scenario you describe in your comment is a “pitfall” of remailing. You are correct. In this case the subscriber may receive a duplicate email.

As with everything when it comes to email:
*Nothing is certain.
*Nothing works every time.
*There are tradeoffs to every decision you make.

I encourage clients to test remailing and carefully examine metrics. In other words:
1. Is there a higher rate of unsub/complain/junk on the remail?
2. Are the extra conversions worth it (depends how your team defines this)?

Thanks for bringing up this very important point.

dj at bronto

With the current number of email readers who default to images off how can you be sure whether or not an email was truly opened or not? I can see a common scenario playing out where a subscriber opens an email and reads it with images turned off and then gets the same email with a different subject line several days later all because we took a leap of faith and assumed that they never read the email the first time (No images turned on and no click activity from within the email.)

I can understand how remailing in theory makes a ton of sense however how do you handle the scenario i describe above? I can see subscribers with that scenario to be more easily annoyed by the duplicate message copy and high frequency of emails your sending.

Thanks for all your great blog posts and podcasts.

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